Every week, PowerMizzou.com publisher Gabe DeArmond answers questions from Tiger fans in the mailbag. This format allows for a more expansive answer than a message board post. Keep your eye out each week to submit your question for the mailbag or send them to powermizzou@gmail.com. On to this week's inquiries.
jrl3m8 asks: This or That?
GD: So this is the game the Mizzou coaches played on Twitter over the last week or two. I imagine most people reading this are far more interested in their answers than mine. But I'll play along because it's the offseason and if you ask it, I almost always answer it here.
Netflix or Hulu--I have both. But Hulu because I can watch live TV and sports
Biggie or Tupac--I listen to almost no music, but if I have to choose probably Tupac
Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts--Dunkin'
Air Jordans or Yeezys--Never owned a pair of either. Jordans if I did.
Chick-fil-A or Cane's--Cane's. Don't at me.
Block M or Oval Tiger--Block M, but I probably care less than anyone on this site.
Lake or Ocean--Ocean
Bacon or Sausage--Sausage
Dogs or Cats--Dogs. Can't imagine anyone answering otherwise.
Personal Chef or Personal Trainer--Chef. Which would lead to the need for a trainer.
Twizzlers or Red Vines--Neither now, but Twizzlers when I was a kid because they could double as a straw
Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey--Whitney
Early Bird or Night Owl--Early Bird
Whataburger or In-n-Out Burger--Whataburger
Read Minds or Time Travel--Read Minds. I feel like it would be far more useful in my job. Not that people ever fail to tell me the truth.
Passenger or Driver--Driver
All Black or All Gold Uniforms--Black (really all white, but black)
mexicojoe asks: Are their data that indicates the percentage of offers made compared to offers accepted for football recruiting?In other word if a school only offers 8 guys but gets 7 to sign, is that considered better than a school that offers 20 but gets 7 to sign.
GD: I imagine at some point someone has done a study on this. But it would be completely meaningless to do so. First of all, the only way to go by number of offers is by using the Rivals (or similar) database. We had Missouri offering 237 players in the Class of 2021 and signing 23, which is a 10% "success rate." So far in 2022, they've offered 166 and have eight commitments. Obviously the class isn't complete. They'll offer a bunch more and land a bunch more.
But there's no way that number of offers is accurate because we only have one side of the story. Any kid that tweeted out he had an offer from Missouri probably has an offer in our database. There are some that probably never had offers at all. There were others who were told at some point they had an offer, but had they called to commit, they wouldn't have been able to. There were still others who had an offer and could have committed at one point, but after Missouri got a player at that position, couldn't commit anymore. The total number of offers reflects none of that. Plus, a lot of kids commit and then just kind of quit reporting offers. So I don't think it means anything in terms of "success rate."
We all know that judging and ranking recruiting classes in real time is, at best, a semi-educated guess. We understand that. To me, there are two things that should indicate how excited you should be about a particular class:
1) When did your team offer? A kid that they offered as a sophomore is not necessarily going to be a better player than one they offered in December of his senior year. But he is a guy that the staff was more confident in at the start of the process. The more guys that you land who had early offers, the better your recruiting efforts probably were. Like anything else, there are tiers. Anybody you're landing before June is a Tier One guy. Most your landing before about September are Tier One or Two. As you get into November and December, you're often looking at Tier Three or Four players (not always, but in many cases).
2) Who else offered? Sure, you can find a lot of guys who turn into great players who have offer lists that look pretty light. But for the most part, if you give me a class where you're beating Tennessee, South Carolina and Arkansas for kids at Mizzou, it's likely to be a much better class than if you're beating New Mexico, Utah State and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Again, not always, but usually.
The sheer number of offers is meaningless, but those two points to me can at least give you a little more information to assess a class.
